I feel that yesterday, in commenting on The Squid & the Whale, I was more harsh than I can admit right now. I can admit that I knew I was being harsh even as I was writing that whole quip. But I won't retract. Instead, I can return to the subject for a second pass. Bernard, the Jeff Daniels character in the movie is a compelling subject in human loneliness. I said before that I could relate with him, and I think that's what sells me on this movie. At first, I thought it was funny but eventually, I just thought him sad, weak. The effect of this character mirrors that of Sean Penn in HurlyBurly and certainly Royal Tannenbaum. The arrogant, the decadent and the self-deficient. The fact that his children mimick him, that they take on his turns of phrases, and his mannerisms are a very powerful cause for thought. When most people can consider how much they have taken from their parents. Their temperament, their opinions, beliefs. What we hold sacred as truth, as definitive reality. Walt- who becomes a liar stopped in his tracks, matched by his girlfriend who actually reads Kafka's Metamorpheses at his suggestion, then cannot have any kind of lively conversation with him (because he hasn't read the story), only throws the words back at her in emptiness. I'm not entirely up to this tonight... I have other things on my brain, not the least of which is spring sprung, and the sometimes unholy consequences thereof...

...if'n you don't know by now...
The only thing I could really report within the last week was my viewing of The Squid & the Whale. A movie for which I had high hopes, only because I knew it didn't really get anywhere with the Oscars. Not like the heavy hitters, Crash, Syriana, Capote, Walk the Line, Brokeback.
So I saw this movie with the anxiety that it might be that sleeper hit that made it through the cracks. But instead, I came away feeling as if here was another movie that I could have left on the shelf. Maybe that's too much of a gut reaction. But I watch a lot of the HBO series with their no holds barred approach to the modern questions of interpersonal ethics, and I wonder how much of the dialogue is meant to be commentary, and how much of the remainder is nothing but intellectual shock manipulation. Like people need to see parents explaining to their children why they had an affair, and then blaming themselves for the dissolution of their children's behavior.
I mean, okay, we get it. Society is forever a continuing anecdote for human being's unceasing ability to behave poorly. And maybe the documenting thereof is healthy. Parents, in a general sense, have certainly begun to allow their children free rein with how to act in the name of "learning themselves." The youngest of the pair was Frank at age ten-eleven, completely unravelling from the effects of his mother and father constantly using each other and their children in unsavory attempts to get back at each other.
I know there are men out there as cold and self-serving as Jeff Daniels' Bernard. Maybe that's what unsettles me entirely about his character. Mostly since I think men like that are ridiculous, and Noah Baumberg said in his "commentary" that he intended for that character to be unwavering in his rigid arrogance. You want him to relent in some way. Maybe see it from someone else's perspective. But everything makes sense only if and when he agrees with them.
God, I guess every guy I've ever known has gone through that phase of his life, usally around age twenty-one until twenty-four or thirty-five-ish... haha myself included. Where he (or I) couldn't help but to impose my viewpoint on everyone around me. And anyone who disagrees is a Philistine. I couldn't help to relate and maybe that's what makes Daniels' portrayal so brilliant, but at the same time, and maybe this where he lost the Oscar, you can't bring yourself to like him in any way. I felt myself repeatedly disappointed by this man in his unfailing need to serve himself, and consequently, warp his oldest son, you can almost sense that hammer falling repeatedly as he shapes a clone in his liking. So is this a way of saying, folks this is not the way to do things? And isn't that the liberal stance on child rearing. Lead by poor example if you must, just for the sake of showing your children how not to live. Only the children who attempt to avoid following in their parents footsteps only fail to find the tread that's never been posited before them.
I only had that experience for a few years in my own life. Maybe the fact that my parents were mostly not open, until maybe the last two years or so, keeps me from "appreciating" this movie as a "worthwhile, must-see" type of movie. If you didn't see it, haven't see it, don't worry too utterly much. It has the ring of a Royal Tannenbaums type production and the characters are in fact, drawn thoroughly and probably realized even beyond the script. It's just that they don't meet in the right places at the middle to give you any good feeling about any of them, except a sorry feeling for anyone whose lives they should happen to touch. At least, Royal Tannenbaums managed to be funny to the point where we could make jokes about them after the show-glow had worn off. Here, I think we mostly marvel at how pathetic they have allowed themselves to be toward each other. How afoul they've run from their own briefly-lived intentions. But take that with a grain of salt. I've just recently seen Jarhead and Capote, two efforts that hit their mark with an almost senior precision. Two movies that managed exactly what they set out for, and no one could ask for anything else from. Maybe I'll watch Squid & the Whale again someday from a different perspective and gaiin that appreciation I desired. Until then, it's just another pretensious effort which will probably drift into video store obscurity.

A few things weighed on mind the last couple days. The last of which--today--came up from a magazine my girlfriend bought at the store, the latest copy of The Nation which had the article on the controvresy over My Name is Rachel Corrie. This is a play about a girl who had gotten crushed by a bulldozer operated by soldiers in the Israeli Army. It seemed strange that they had composed a play using her emails, journal entries because the play seems like such a strange forum for such an incident as this. Apparently, the play has been produced in London and has had a great deal of circulation there, but has been posponed "indefinitely" in New York. If anyone wants to know the full story about this girl, they can either google cahiers de corey or simply go to racehlswords.com. What lies there is a memorialization to a girl, I mean 23-years old woman, who had an adamant belief about what she was doing, and a strong desire to make a difference in a way that so few people get to. I mean, I went to college, and occasionally attended conferences and forums about peace and justice in the world, but ultimately, I have always felt like I fell short in the arena of actively contributing to the injustices of the world.
I often felt as if there was little I could do, or else, was only participating in the most passive ways to situations abroad or at home. I certainly never joined Habitat for Humanity and only signed a petition or two for Amnesty Interntl, and then received pamphlets ever after regarding symposiums or conferences which I never found an interest to attend. I thought it cold and calculating if I ever did. Depressing. Reactionary. Simply didn't want to be deemed a prostylitizer or something along those lines.
I just went to the rachelswords website and was inspired ? by what I found there. Mostly because there is a girl who's way up there on the Maslow hierarchy or Erikson's eight stages of development. This is a girl who must of been heavily exposed to Gandhi-like ideas, and she just stayed there, lived there most of her short life. That she wanted to be dance around to Pat Benetar and have boyfriends, etc. but that the kind of world that the people in the Middle East have to live in just simply needs to change. That the injustice should stop. There's a well there and I think people realize that. It's not that she died in vain. But that she died with a whole legacy untold of yet. Why? Because so many people die in similar causes and go unsung, and they are the dispossessed, and are so because they recognize so many who are similarly dispossessed. Just that simple recognition in a human being. realizing the simple, innumerable freedoms they have, and that there are so many who go without, only because they were born into families, into whole other worlds than our own. I don't think a girl like this wants to curse the world she is born into, but simply wants to see that this world, this planet is an equal opportunity lender. I think she sees the world from a wholly different perspective than what we are used to, the angle we're slinging.
I guess I got more interested in the Israel-Palestine situation as a result of a convergence of a few different news items. I am not a political person, but I subscribed to Harpers in college, mostly as a trickle down from reading it for the essay form. I loved the essay form, and still do, simply because it allows us to explore our beliefs about the information we gather through the world. In any case, to say I'm not political may be a bit misinformed. Some of us just don't delve that deeply into the world of politics as others. Yet, I found myself experiencing a deep sense of reverence upon my last couple trips to Washington DC, that there could actually still be something sacred about the constructs of government. At any rate, no more digression...
The Israeli-Palestine problem continues to be an elusive matter for me. I have done my best to read up on the matter, the major players, why the Gaza seems to be the cause of years of dispute? Being from the United States, in the modern era, a disenfranchised Catholic, despite twelve years (including college) of religious background, I am at pains to understand the importance of the occupation of land. The Jews against the Muslims, the Muslims against the Jews, and basically we don't want you in our backyard. Same as the Hazaras and the Pushtans in Afghanistans... Correct me if I am wrong, but this goes back to David and Goliath in a sense, does it not? Or even whether Abraham was the father of all human civilzation.
My point earlier, the United States, despite the childhood admission of the allegiance to the flag, has no sense of allegiance that's worth dying over. Or at least that's what we tell ourselves. Sure, we're Yankee fans, Red Sox fans, Broncos, Raiders, Nascar fanatics, maybe even Cadillac men and women, occasionally feminsts and vegetarians. We express our individualities, and even proclaimn ouselves as white supremacists, Christian coelites or abortion/pro-rights activists. We get behind causes or teams, but most of us don't need to fight over land. We're not constantly having to move every five days because the border has changed. Since it became an annexation in 1845, Texas is pretty much the Texas it was back then. Better yet, and more precisely, San Antonio is pretty much going to stay San Antonio for the next couple of months.
And not a gun will need to be drawn to keep that a constant. We in Omaha do think a little different, at least the papers allow us to. Because there are small towns in the surrounding areas that are in jeopardy to be annexed by the great city metro proper. There may be some pissing and ranting about that. The towns may get a little feisty at council meetings and folks get upset, but car bombs aren't going off. The national guard is not coming in on this one. They argue in side, loudly but by definition, peacefully.
Then, you have Hamas, with their green flags and their chanting and parading. People are firing weapons into the sky for celebration. We don't get it, because it's just not how business is done in America. But there's simply a need to break down that veil of ignorance, the shroud of awareness. That this is a big big world we're in outside of what we're usually moaning and groaning about. It would just be nice to open that dialogue a little more often, and keep that line to the outside world humming just a little more frequently. I work for an international company with clients who move and operate throughout the globe. They travel in and through areas which should be of concern. While they're in the job, they may be acutely aware of such things. They know it has happened, that it could happen that they are rendered helpless against the elements of hostile regimes. But it is never entirely the American's concern because they have a sense of destiny in which bad things happen to civilized people. They want the seat on the airplane closest to the front. They want the low-fat meal on the plane. They want the exit row to afford more leg room. They expect that "you can just make that happen." "Are we all finished here?" "Are we good now?" Israel Palestine , the Iraqi insurgence is just something you read about in USA Today in the airport or in the break room. It may even make it to your couch as you watch the evening news over meatloaf. It is a situation, an occurrence. Unless you can break it down, unless there's people involved. Not people like you and me, no, they're lives are hanging in the balance. They may work for a living, but not if they're homes are uprooted, their lives overturned, inconvenienced, placed in a state of shock and realignment.
They are like you and me, in every respect, except for out of what bodies they were born, onto which earth they fell. We could say, tough break. Which is what would be most easy to say, Wec ould just change the channel. We could completely shut it off, forget about it. Relax with our thoughts or the new Julia Louise Dreyfus comedy coming out. That fucked up Bill Paxton show on HBO about the Mormon family with three wives. My thinking is just this-- there's just not enough drive to stay plugged in to realities of the world. If nothing else, just knowing whats happening beyond your front porch, beyonf the city limits, out there, over yonder, across those two big ass oceans, in those continents that outnumber us 4 billion to less than 1 billion. It was the cradle of civilization until we just into a few ships and tried to sail around the world. Then we got stuck here. And we've been stuck here ever since.